


Lost it to Trying

by Effluvium



Category: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 - Fandom, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Peter, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 16:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17491064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Effluvium/pseuds/Effluvium
Summary: She’d told them to run like it would’ve made a difference, like there weren’t people outside her house running for their lives, disappearing just as fast as she was.





	Lost it to Trying

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really bad with tags so that's why there's so few but anyways you guys should listen to "Lost it to Trying" by Son Lux.

You wouldn’t have thought chaos would ensue like it did, but then again, people never really were that good at predicting a future they never thought could happen.

Everything, cut in half -- families sliced through with a sharp, wicked knife. Populations divided, living and dead [disappeared, dusted]. Every living creature on the face of the earth, rung out like a towel that’ll never dry.

The nearly nine-million strong of New York City -- taken off guard, despite the donut that’d been in the sky not so much more than a couple days ago. New Yorkers were known for their toughness, their give-no-shits attitude, but even that couldn’t keep them from the pure panic of it all.

That donut was nothing compared to what happened a few days later. Michelle could remember the exact moment she realized it was happening -- two-forty-four post meridiem. She was staying at Ned’s house and school had just been let out. Luckily, he wasn’t the reason they found out it was happening.

_“Hey, mom, are there any pizza -- mom?”_

She’d looked sick for some reason. Michelle could see the fear in her eyes, but she didn’t know where it was coming from.

_“Ned? Ned, run -- both of you, run as fast as you can, run --”_

She’d told them to run like it would’ve made a difference, like there weren’t people outside her house running for their lives, disappearing just as fast as she was.

_“Mom, what’s --”_

He hadn’t even gotten the question out. Her dust fell into his arms, coating him in grey like he’d just been in a house fire. His eyes were wide and he didn’t seem to be breathing right, and then he looked at her, in this way --

_“MJ? What just happened?” Ned shook, the dust still settled on his smooth arms. “Am I disappearing? Are you? Please don’t go, please.”_

He’d latched onto her arms with a death grip, drawing her in for a tight embrace. Not quite a hug, but more of a prison, as if his arms would prevent her, too, from becoming dust on the ground in front of him.

_“I think we’d be gone already, Ned.”_ She frowned, pulling away and looking him in his fearful brown orbs. _“Are you going to tell me where Peter is now, Ned? Please? What if….”_

Outside, screams intensified. Michelle had heard them all along, but they only now came into focus as the sheer terror of it all flooded her mind.

_“MJ, I….”_

_“What if he’s gone?”_ She hadn’t meant to be so harsh, especially not in that moment, but the screams were getting to her. _“What if he’s dust, too, Ned? What if --”_

_“Shut up, Michelle! Stop!”_ He’d yelled it, a panic laid out in his eyes. It caught her off guard because Ned Leeds never yells at anyone, least of all his friends.

In that moment, dust and cement rained down on them. They ran out the door and into the street, looking up to find a helicopter crashed into the roof of his house. 

_“There’s no one in the chair.”_

All around them, people were running from their homes. Parents watched their sons and daughters look up at them and disappear, screaming out their names and running towards them. Michelle saw a young girl, no more than five or six, hold onto her mother and father as they crumbled away, tears streaming down her face as she screamed into open air.

Michelle ran to her, picking her up and cradling her face in her shoulder.

_“Shh, it’s alright, I’ll take care of you. What’s your name?”_

Her tears were making her hard to understand. _“Eva.”_

_“We’re Ned and Michelle, okay? We’ll take care of you.”_

Eventually they got into the main city, just in time to see another helicopter crash into a apartment building. Fire erupted and debri rained down, injuring many people, but the worst part were the TVs still working, displaying the news like some awful movie.

_“Billions of people, disappearing all around the world --”_

_“Millions in property damage already, and it’s only been happening for fifteen minutes --”_

_“Twenty planes have already been seen crashing into cities and oceans --”_

_“New York City is experiencing a second 9/11 with all the buildings collapsing --”_

Every reporter looked terrified, and every few seconds Michelle would catch them staring at something behind the camera, hearts pounding in their chests as their typically confident, level voices shook with panic and shaky breaths.

_“There’s dust behind the cameras.”_ Ned looked as if he were going to be sick, and with a five-year-old in her arms, that wouldn’t do any of them any good.

_“Ned, you can’t freak out right here. I know it’s hard, but you can’t lose it until this is all over and all figured out.”_

_“And when will that be, MJ? Because I’m not so sure it will end.”_

Michelle grimaced at that, but ignored him. He’d gotten her point and was holding Eva now, and luckily he hadn’t been right about the lack of an end.

It took forty more minutes of people screaming and disappearing. Forty minutes of her calling Peter’s shitty phone, hoping to God that he would pick up. Forty minutes of ignoring the critical, guilty side-glances Ned kept giving her every time the call would go to his voicemail.

An hour later, her phone rang, scaring her out of her mind as she raced for it. She, Ned and Eva were in a local clinic that had less than half its staff available.

“Hello? Pe--”

_“MJ? It’s Liz.”_

Michelle blinked and tried not to deflate. This was good, another friend alive, even if she was states away in Oregon. She clicked the speaker button, letting out a sigh. “Hey, Liz. It’s good to hear from you.”

_“You too,”_ her voice sounded tight, constricted, like she couldn’t breathe properly. _“Are you guys alright? Every city’s taken massive damage and I didn’t know if…”_

“We’re okay,” Ned lied, swallowing roughly. “What about you?”

A sigh, unreal. _“I guess I’m lucky, my mom and I are both still here… I really wish I was there, though. In New York. I need people to see and talk to and I don’t have anyone too real here.”_

“Well, you’re invited….” Michelle chuckled a bit at that, then frowned, voice cracking just a bit. “Hey, I know this is a random question, but… you haven’t heard from Peter, have you?”

She could almost hear the heart drop on the other end of the line.

_“No, I was going to ask you the same. I know him and I didn’t part on the best of terms, but… he’s a good guy.”_

“Yeah,” Ned sighed, rubbing his neck, that same guilty look on his face. “He is.”

The phone clicked off. MJ sighed leaning back into the chair as Eva slept against her shoulder, looking over at Ned. It was too quiet. “What now?”

 

It was a clusterfuck for weeks.

There wasn’t really a problem with amenities and necessities, but nothing felt right. It was too quiet, too simple, too semi-serene. The only liveliness in New York were the thugs springing out, taking advantage of the shortage of city cops.

The Avengers had arrived the second day into the Decimation, but they didn’t really answer anything. They seemed just as lost and far gone as everyone else, and if that wasn’t disheartening, Michelle didn’t know what was.

The worst part of it all were the missing posters. Thousands scattered throughout New York; plastered on the sides of every building, hanging from light posts, crumpling under millions of feet as people tried their best to go about their day and not feel the sinking helplessness of it all.

Michelle didn’t know where May was. The best she could think up was that she’d dusted, like everyone else. That was better than being killed by all the debri in the streets, right? Because all the decimated were definitely coming back, right? Because the Avengers were here, they were going to do something, fix it all.

They definitely were, right?

They could fix it?

“Why don’t we go see them?”

Michelle rolled her eyes, looking up from the paper. “We can’t just stroll up to that facility, Ned. That’s not how it works.”

“Isn’t it?” Ned sat up. “I mean, we’re just a couple of kids. Maybe we can offer some ideas up, try and help them out?”

“What could we possibly give them, Ned? We don’t even know how it happened. They aren’t releasing any information to the public.”

“Then we go and get the information, MJ!”

She huffed, looking down at the headline. _Daredevil and Punisher Confirmed to have Dusted_. “What do we know, Ned? We don’t know who did it all, how it happened, what went down where -- hell, Tony Stark is still _missing_. If he’s dead, then….”

Ned hung is head. “Don’t _think_ like that, MJ. Peter’s probably fine. He’s not an easy guy to just… _kill_. Did you know he once lifted off like one-hundred tons of rubble off of himself?”

Michelle chose to ignore that. Peter was the weakest kid she knew. She looked back down at the paper. “Y’know, I knew who he was, right? Daredevil?”

Ned rose a brow. “Really? What’s his name?”

Michelle shook her head. “He was blind, Ned.” She bit her lip, quivering a bit, looking at the Filipino next to her. “Blind. Imagine what it was like for him, dusting. How’d he even know what was happening?”

Before Ned could respond, the TV blared to life, making both of them jump. The news was on, and it was blaring.

_“Breaking News, Tony Stark has just arrived back on Earth with extensive injuries and is being transported to Long Island Jewish Forest Hills Hospital --”_

Michelle was glued to the television. Reporters were crowding around the gurney, trying to get the cameras in his face while EMTs yelled at them, pushing them back as well they could while trying to work with Stark. Every time they did all she could see was an unconscious man with what seemed to be like a stab wound in his side. What scared her, though, was that he was alone.

Or, almost.

_“There seems to be a… blue woman with him? John, try to get the camera on her, but stay far away, we don’t know --”_

“Who the hell?” Ned whispered. He had a curious look as he stared. “She looks like a robot. Is she an alien? What the hell is Tony Stark doing with an alien? Is that the ship?”

_“Nebula? What the hell --”_

_“Rocket, where are we? Rocket, fucking answer me --”_

The blue woman was talking to a raccoon. There was a gigantic red ship behind them, resting in a divot of earth.

_“Where’s everyone else, Nebula? Where’s Gamora? Where’s Quill, Drax, Mantis?”_

_“Rocket, they’re --”_

“We’ve gotta get to that hospital.”

Ned blinked, hard. “Uh, weren’t you the one that said we couldn’t just _storm in_?”

“That was the Avenger’s facility,” Michelle picked Eva up. “We’re going for a walk, okay, Eva? We’ve got to get some answers.”

“From Tony Stark?” She rubbed her eyes, yawning.

“Maybe.” Michelle eyed the TV. “Or from that blue woman.”

 

The hospital was no more than a few blocks away, but it never felt like they were running fast enough. The problem arose when they got there, though.

“Everyone needs to get back. Tony Stark will not be answering any of your questions. Leave.”

“That’s War Machine,” Ned whispered as they rounded the corner. “Minus the machine. Where’s everyone else?”

There was a crowd at least one-hundred strong closing in on him, but he didn’t seem to worried. Even from this distance, he looked tired.

“We have to get in.”

Ned shot Michelle a look. “MJ, there’s no way we’re getting in there. It’s not like we have an explanation for needing to talk to _any_ of them --”

“Sure we do.” She settled her brown eyes on his, expression suddenly malicious. “Because Peter was there, right? He’s _Spider-Man_ , right, Ned?”

He paled. “I was going to tell you --”

“No, you weren’t.” Michelle sighed. “But it’s fine. A secret’s a secret, I get it. Now, I’m betting War Machine over there knows exactly who he is, and he’ll reason with us.”

Ned nodded, and they walked over, shoving through the crowd until they were right in front of the man himself. He seemed caught off guard, looking at the three of them.

“You can’t come in.”

“We need to ask him a question.”

“He’s still in surgery,” he said sternly. “And even after, I doubt he’ll be wanting any questions.”

“Well, sir, we’ve been here for weeks without an answer to where our friend is, and he’s got the answers.”

“You’re not the only one with a missing friend, missy.” He narrowed his eyes, testing her. “Be like everyone else. Put up a missing poster, and hopefully they’ll be found.”

“War Machine, you fought on that airport, right?” Ned glanced down at his legs. “I’m guessing you did.”

“Yeah, I did. In Berlin.”

“Alright, then you’ll remember everyone who’s there, right?”

“Definitely.”

“Okay,” Ned breathed out, tilting his head up at the man. “My friend talked to me about how he fought with you guys up there. How he fought Steve Rogers and helped take down some giant-ass version of Ant-Man. Does that _ring a bell_?”

War Machine bit his lip, immediately looking apologetic. “Kid, I don’t know where your friend is. I don’t even know if he went up there with Tony.”

Michelle leaned passed him, looking inside the glass doors. “At least let us talk to that blue lady, okay? She came here with him, right?”

Rhodey contemplated, then sighed. “You’ve got to promise you won’t go after Stark until I say so.”

“We won’t,” Michelle agreed, hiking Eva higher up. “But… we’ve got to know. Please.”

Rhodey nodded, letting them pass. They ran inside, immediately going for the blue woman and raccoon.

The animal tilted his head. “Who’re you wimps?”

Michelle narrowed her eyes. “We’ve got a question.” She turned to the woman, who was giving them a sad look. “Are you Nebula?”

“Yes.”

“Were you with Stark?”

“Yes.”

“Were you with anyone else?”

She licked her lips. “Yes. The rest of the Guardians and Stark’s friends. We tried to hold him off and failed.”

Ned blinked. “Him?”

“Thanos.”

A chill ran through the air. Eva teared up and Michelle felt nauseous. “Where is everyone else?”

“Dead, kid, okay?” The raccoon turned on them, waving his small arms angrily in the air. “They all died. My team, Stark’s team -- everyone.”

Ned’s breaths were shaky and he took a step back. Michelle furrowed her brows, looking back to Nebula. “Who was a part of Stark’s team?”

“There were only three of them. Stark, the magician, and…” Nebula paused, looking Michelle over for the first time. “Oh, you’re asking about him.”

There was a pounding in Michelle’s head. It all felt wrong. “Nebula?”

“That spider-kid.”

Her heart dropped. All her breath left her and she could barely hold Eva up.

“I… sorry. He’s gone, kid.” Nebula gave her a look, a haunting one. “He didn’t go easy. The dust had a hard time taking him.”

And then her mind shattered, and it felt like there was nothing left.


End file.
